Magic Books
I’m reading the most wonderful book at the moment. I’m so engrossed, I can’t think about anything else. I can’t wait to get some time to myself, so that I can curl up and dive into it, devour it with my eyes, savouring each perfect sentence.
The last thing I enjoyed even half as much was the Time Traveller’s Wife, which I avoided buying for ages because it was on Richard and Judy’s Book Club list, and Richard Madeleymakes me want to throw rotten fruit at the TV.
Some books just grab you by the guts and hang on - I always know when I’ve found something special because I start to feel churned up. When I sit down and open the pages, my heart starts to beat a little faster. I’m oblivious to everything.
Once I ended up with a large, ugly bruise on my forehead because I walked into a lamp-post while reading The God of Small Things – I remember it clearly, because Estha was coming out of The Sound of Music when ‘bam’, the world intruded painfully and I remembered I was in Battersea, not Kerala. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the guy at the bus stop nearby nearly wet himself.
And then, when the story is done, it leaves behind an atmosphere that lingers, like the fragment of a holiday memory, or the remembered smell of crayons in empty school corridors.
I read books like this with an equal mixture of awe and envy. I dream of being able to write so well, of being able to inspire such passionate emotion in someone else. To be able to create a world so gloriously peopled in your head, and describe it so beautifully is a gift I’ve yearned for since I was six, and wrote rubbish stories about a family of sentient raspberries.
Anyway, this book is called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon.
I advise you to read it as soon as possible, if you haven’t already.
Off you go. Go on.
The last thing I enjoyed even half as much was the Time Traveller’s Wife, which I avoided buying for ages because it was on Richard and Judy’s Book Club list, and Richard Madeleymakes me want to throw rotten fruit at the TV.
Some books just grab you by the guts and hang on - I always know when I’ve found something special because I start to feel churned up. When I sit down and open the pages, my heart starts to beat a little faster. I’m oblivious to everything.
Once I ended up with a large, ugly bruise on my forehead because I walked into a lamp-post while reading The God of Small Things – I remember it clearly, because Estha was coming out of The Sound of Music when ‘bam’, the world intruded painfully and I remembered I was in Battersea, not Kerala. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the guy at the bus stop nearby nearly wet himself.
And then, when the story is done, it leaves behind an atmosphere that lingers, like the fragment of a holiday memory, or the remembered smell of crayons in empty school corridors.
I read books like this with an equal mixture of awe and envy. I dream of being able to write so well, of being able to inspire such passionate emotion in someone else. To be able to create a world so gloriously peopled in your head, and describe it so beautifully is a gift I’ve yearned for since I was six, and wrote rubbish stories about a family of sentient raspberries.
Anyway, this book is called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon.
I advise you to read it as soon as possible, if you haven’t already.
Off you go. Go on.
posted by Rachie at 5:48 PM
